Outrageous Mushroom Quiche

This is not your grandma's quiche. This quiche is a deep dish, heavenly delight that will transform your ideas of traditional quiche. My inspiration for this quiche came after reading Art of Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life by Kate McDermott. Her take on baking pies and making crust is less exact than what we've been told about the science of baking and it allows for some freedom and creativity. McDermott has a simple list of rules when making pies and Rule #1 is my favorite: "Keep Everything Chilled, Especially Yourself."

Whenever a recipe of mine calls for a pie crust I start to get a little anxious and nervous, especially now that our family is gluten free. Will it taste just as good as a regular flour crust? How long do I knead the dough? How big is "pea-sized" crumbs? Is that too much ice water? Will the dough crack when I roll it out? After reading Art of Pie I found myself actually wanting to make a pie crust and I really enjoyed it this time. Who cares that it didn't look perfect and that little edge fell over on top of the quiche while baking? I think it adds charm and my family saw the love I put into making their meal, after all, isn't that the most important part of cooking for others?

For the Outrageous Mushroom Quiche recipe, use your favorite All Butter Pie Crust recipe. My favorite gluten free recipe can be found at kingarthurflour.com, just remember that when making a savory pie crust omit the sugar or reduce it to a small pinch. Taking some advice from Art of Pie, I remembered to keep myself chill this time and I gave myself extra time to let the pie shell chill for a couple of hours before filling and baking, this helped to keep the butter cold and resulted in a flakier crust.

In this recipe, I used two different kinds of mushrooms, cremini and shitake, but you can use any type you have on hand and what fits with your budget. If you like morel mushrooms and can stomach the $70 per pound price tag, then go for it, the world is your oyster. I chose the cremini because it is relatively inexpensive and has more flavor than a white button mushroom and the shitake mushrooms add a lot of flavor and keep their shape in the cooking process.

Let's talk about the custard for a minute. Most quiche recipes I've found and tried use a high ratio of egg to cream leaving your quiche tasting like a rubbery scrambled egg. This recipe has a higher cream to egg ratio which results in a silky, fluffy quiche, think creme brulee or panna cotta creaminess. Is your mouth watering yet?

Outrageous Mushroom Quiche
Ingredients:
All Butter Pie Crust recipe for one 9 inch crust (see above link to kingarthur.com)
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 pound shitake mushrooms, cleaned, stems removed and large caps torn in half
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned and thinly sliced
1 Tbs. butter
2 small shallots, minced
1 large sprig fresh thyme
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup Gruyere or Swiss cheese, finely grated

For the custard:
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
a pinch nutmeg

Directions
Roll out pie crust to about 12 inches and press into a 9 inch spring-form pan, allowing the crust to stick up above the sides slightly. Loosely cover pie shell with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least an hour, up to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat. When oil is hot, add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt and let brown until softened slightly, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low and add butter, shallots, and thyme to pan, cooking for 5-8 minutes or until the shallots are translucent and the thyme leaves are beginning to fall off the stems. Let cool completely.

In a blender, combine all of the custard ingredients and blend on high for 1 minute until very frothy. Retrieve the pie shell from the ridge and layer 1/3 cup of cheese on top of the crust, then sprinkle half of the mushroom mixture on top of the cheese. Slowly pour half of the custard on top of the mushrooms being careful not to move the mushrooms around. Sprinkle another 1/3 cup of cheese, then top with the remaining mushrooms, pour remaining custard over the mushrooms, and finally top the custard with the last 1/3 cup of cheese. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the center is set and only slightly wobbly. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes or to room temperature and serve.